The legislature is moving forward with the budget process, despite not having an agreement in place with the Governor on final spending for each department for the 2019-20 fiscal year set to begin on October 1st.  Last week, the conference committees for K12 spending, higher education, community colleges, EGLE and Natural Resources, and State Police were all sent to the floor where they await a final vote by each chamber.  Ten additional budget conference committees are scheduled for Thursday this week, including the conference committees for MDOT and General Government, which includes revenue sharing.

The Governor has threatened to veto any budget bills that reach her desk without an overall budget agreement in place.

The Governor had proposed a 3% increase to statutory revenue sharing earlier this year.  During initial legislative action on the budgets this spring, the Senate version left revenue sharing flat at current year levels, while the House budget version increased revenue sharing by 2.3%.  With the continued disagreement between the legislature and administration, it is not known at this point how much general fund revenue will be available for revenue sharing in this week’s legislative budget proposal.

League members are urged to contact their House and Senate legislators to request that any budget produced by the Legislature reverse the trend of the past decade and begin reinvesting in revenue sharing and the communities in each of their districts.

Chris Hackbarth is the League’s director of state & federal affairs. He can be reached at 517-908-0304 and [email protected].